LONDON — Cuban world high jump record holder Javier Sotomayor, unexpectedly cleared to compete in next month’s Sydney Olympics, has tested positive for cocaine at least twice, a senior International Amateur International Federation (IAAF) official said on Friday.

The 1992 Barcelona Olympic champion and twice world champion had a two-year ban cut in half by the IAAF council on Wednesday after testing positive for cocaine at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, on July 31 last year.

At an emergency doping meeting on Wednesday the IAAF council decided on humanitarian grounds to reinstate the 32-year-old Cuban, the finest high jumper in the history of the sport.

But on Friday IAAF senior vice-president Arne Ljungqvist said Sotomayor had tested positive at least once since the Pan-American Games.

‘I know there was at least one positive test and possibly two,’ Lungqvist said by telephone from Stockhom. ‘There was definitely one out-of-competition test.’

Out-of-competition tests are used to detect banned performance-enhancing substances such as an anabolic steroids rather than stimulants such as cocaine, which is commonly used as a recreational drug.

But sources close to the IAAF said the testing laboratories had deliberately tested Sotomayor’s urine samples for a variety of substances because he was due to go before the IAAF’s arbitration panel after being cleared by the Cuban federation.

One source said Sotomayor had tested positive twice for cocaine since the Pan-American Games, indicating a continuing problem.

Sotomayor repeated on Friday his denial that he had ever taken cocaine.

‘Of course it is false, it is totally false,’ Sotomayor told Reuters by telephone in Havana. ‘Behind this there is someone who wants to do me harm, we see bad intentions.’
Sotomayor is immensely popular in Cuba and is viewed by President Fidel Castro’s government as a supreme hero of its socialist sports system.

At a patriotic ceremony in Havana late on Wednesday in honour of Cuba’s full Olympic squad, Sotomayor received a prolonged standing ovation from a crowd which included Castro.

Castro has personally defended Sotomayor, calling him one of the ‘glories’ of the nation who became the victim of bungled laboratory techniques and a probable plot by anti-communist foes abroad.

Reuters John Mehaffey

Source: SOCOG